ABSTRACT
Even before the Treaty of Peace accounts of the Revolution began to appear. Predictably, the arguments used were indistinguishable from those employed by the Patriot party during the Anglo-American crisis. If American historians tailored their histories to serve a cause, they were also scholars attempting to explain an historical event. Every American historian agreed that British officials had been motivated by a desire to make the colonies "subservient to their avarice and ambition". Americans had come to think of themselves as a special people, uniquely placed by history to capitalize on, complete and fulfill the promise of man's existence. David Ramsay, could refer to the "inscrutable operation of Providence" while discussing the American Revolution entirely in terms of human motivations and choices. The disputes over taxation created a false impression that the dependence of the British economy on American trade provided an infallible weapon against the mother country.
